These Two Dangerous Trojan 'dropper' Android Apps Have Been Downloaded Thousands Of Times

A brand new, and reasonably profitable marketing campaign to ship Trojans to Android customers has been uncovered by cybersecurity researchers from Risk Material.

The consultants warn that ever since Google made updates to its “Developer Program Coverage”, menace actors have been searching for new methods to ship malware by the Play Retailer and keep underneath the radar whereas doing it.

This new marketing campaign contains a number of droppers, with greater than 130,000 downloads between them, deploying two recognized Trojans to the victims’ cellular endpoints: Sharkbot and Vultur. Whereas Sharkbot’s targets are solely Italians, Vultur’s operators are casting a considerably bigger web, focusing on not simply Italians, but in addition folks within the UK, The Netherlands, Germany, and France.

Pretend updates

Sharkbot’s modus operandi is straightforward: the model discovered on Google’s cellular app repository will not be malicious, however as quickly because the consumer turns it on, it shows a faux Play Retailer web page, forcing the sufferer to “replace” the app earlier than utilizing it. “Since victims are positive concerning the origin of the appliance, they are going to extremely seemingly set up and run the downloaded Sharkbot payload,” the researchers concluded.

Sharkbot’s purpose is to switch cash, from financial institution accounts belonging to the victims, to the operators, by way of Automated Switch Techniques. NCC Group described it as an “superior method” hardly ever used with Android malware, which allows menace actors to auto-fill fields in legit cellular banking apps.

Vultur, however, targets social media and messaging purposes, banking apps and cryptocurrency change apps.

Between the 2, Vultur appears to be the extra profitable Trojan, as Risk Material says it reached greater than 100,000 potential fraud victims in the previous couple of months.

“Distribution by droppers on Google Play nonetheless stays essentially the most “inexpensive” and scalable means of reaching victims for a lot of the actors of various ranges,” researchers concluded.

“Whereas refined techniques like telephone-oriented assault supply require extra sources and are laborious to scale, droppers on official and third-party shops enable menace actors to achieve broad unsuspecting viewers with affordable efforts.”